The Independent, Feb 2, 2018 (emphasis added): Fukushima nuclear disaster: Lethal levels of radiation detected in leak… Expert warns of ‘global’ consequences unless the plant is treated properly… [Tepco] found eight sieverts per hour of radiation, while 42 [sieverts] were also detected outside its foundations… It came as Tepco said the problem of contaminated water pooled around the plants three reactors that is seeping into the ground has caused a major headache in its efforts to decommission the plant… Mycle Schneider, an independent energy consultant and lead author of the World Nuclear Industry Status Report, said that Tepco “hasn’t a clue what it is doing” in its job to decommission the plant. He added that the contaminated water that is leaking at the site could end up in the ocean if the ongoing treatment project fails and cause a “global” disaster, he told The Independent… “I find it symptomatic of the past seven years, in that they don’t know what they’re doing, Tepco, these energy companies haven’t a clue what they’re doing, so to me it’s been going wrong from the beginning. It’s a disaster of unseen proportions.” Mr Schneider added that the radiation leaks coupled with the waste from the plant stored in an “inappropriate” way in tanks could have global consequences… “This can get problematic anytime, if it contaminates the ocean there is no local contamination, the ocean is global, so anything that goes into the ocean goes to everyone.” He added: “It needs to be clear that this problem is not gone, this is not just a local problem. It’s a very major thing.”

NHK, Feb 1, 2018: High radiation detected at Fukushima plant… A remote-controlled inspection of the Unit 2 reactor containment vessel last month detected a maximum of 8 sieverts per hour of radiation… [Tepco] said the radiation reading was taken near what appeared to be fuel debris, the term used to describe a mixture of molten fuel and broken interior parts… radiation levels remain so high that they present a major challenge to decommissioning work. During the probe, 42 sieverts per hour of radiation was also detected outside the foundations of the reactor. But officials said they have doubts about the accuracy of the reading because a cover had not been removed from the measuring instrument at the time.
They added that they don’t know why radiation levels were lower near the suspected fuel debris than around the foundations. They gave a number of possible reasons, such as that cooling water may have washed radioactive materials off the debris…

Sputnik, Feb 4, 2018: ‘Global Consequences’ of Lethal Radiation Leak at Destroyed Japan Nuclear Plant… While 8 Sv/h is deadly, outside of Fukushima’s Reactor Number 2 foundations… a much higher level of 42 Sv/h was detected. A strange occurrence, and experts are still arguing what caused the discrepancy. One possible explanation is that cooling water washed radioactive material off debris, taking it somewhere else. But here’s a truly terrifying catch: according to the report, Tepco highly doubts the new readings, because, as was discovered later, a cover was not removed from the robot-mounted measurement device at the time of the inspection, NHK World reports… While that radiation dosimeter cover negligence prevents precise calculations, the actual picture inside Unit 2 is thought to be much worse…

Kyodo, Jul 22, 2017 (emphasis added): In big step forward, Tepco finds melted fuel at bottom of reactor 3 in Fukushima… The debris was clearly identifiable to at least one nuclear expert. “The images that appear to be melted fuel debris match those found in the (1986) Chernobyl crisis,” said Tadashi Narabayashi, a specially appointed professor of nuclear engineering working at Hokkaido University. “It’s definitely fuel debris… It’s an epoch-making event.”

Asahi Shimbun, Jul 23, 2017: Melted nuke fuel images show struggle facing Fukushima plant — Images captured on July 22 of solidified nuclear fuel debris at the bottom of a containment vessel of the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant show the enormity of decommissioning of the facility… [TEPCO] also discovered that the nuclear fuel debris has spread throughout the containment vessel.

AP, Jul 22, 2017: [TEPCO] said the robot found large amounts of lava-like debris apparently containing fuel that had flowed out of the core… TEPCO spokesman Takahiro Kimoto said it was the first time a robot camera has captured what is believed to be the melted fuel. “That debris has apparently fallen from somewhere higher above. We believe it is highly likely to be melted fuel or something mixed with it,” Kimoto said…

Kyodo, Jul 23, 2017: The robot was sent closer to the bottom of the reactor on Saturday and found possible fuel debris scattered in a wide area.

Japan Times, Jul 21, 2017: Fukushima robot finds potential fuel debris hanging like icicles in reactor 3… The objects spotted this time look like icicles… Tepco is pinning its efforts on technology not yet invented to get the melted fuel out of the reactors.

Reuters, Jul 21, 2017: Tepco detected black-colored material that dangled like icicles that could be nuclear debris near the bottom of the reactor’s pressure vessel that contained the fuel rods, the report said, citing unnamed sources.

Bloomberg, Jul 21, 2017: New images show what is likely to be melted nuclear fuel hanging from inside one of Japan’s wrecked Fukushima reactors… [Tepco] released images on Friday showing a hardened black, grey and orange substance…

Financial Times, Jul 24, 2017: [Kimoto] was reluctant to speculate on the nature of seemingly corroded orange patches in the images.

NHK, Jul 23, 2017: [TEPCO] says Saturday’s probe found lumps that are highly likely to be fuel debris piling up at the bottom of the containment vessel… The deposits are estimated to be one to two meters thick. Images released on Saturday show black, rock-like lumps and what appear to be pebbles and sand accumulating at the bottom.

March 14th, 2017, 6:36 pm ET
Nuclear Engineer: Fukushima is “worst industrial cataclysm in history of world… As close to hell as I can imagine” — Melted fuel ‘disappeared’ — Contamination will go on for hundreds of thousands of years… “No one knows when it’ll end” — Gov’t perpetrating ongoing cover-up (VIDEO)

KGO 810 AM, Feb 9, 2017 (at 9:15 in):
Pat Thurston, host (emphasis added): “There’s a story that’s going around the internet, Snopes says there’s nothing to verify that this is true — I guess Tepco is denying it — but there’s a story going around that the containment structure is in jeopardy — its tilting — it’s in jeopardy of falling over, so we’ll talk about that too — if that is even a possibility. Were that to happen, what would that mean?… First, to the issue of the potential for a collapse of the building — for the building to topple over — for it to somehow to collapse. Is that a thing? Can that happen?”

Arnie Gundersen, nuclear engineer: “Yeah, it can happen — and that’s my biggest concern. Tepco is building a wall along the ocean… it’s trapping all this groundwater onsite, and essentially making the ground mushy… There’s already significant damage [to the reactor buildings] — the entire coast of Japan dropped three feet during that earthquake and never rebounded… But the Fukushima site didn’t fall straight, it fell at an angle, it’s about a two inch incline across the site now. So the buildings are in mushy ground and they’re not quite straight. The other part is that there’s a toxic brew of radioactive chemicals inside there, but there’s also just chemicals – they’re eating away at the concrete and they’re eating away at the steel. It’s a nasty chemical broth inside these plants. My fear is that if there’s a Richter 7 quake, not the Richter 9 that happened 6 years ago, if there’s a Richter 7 quake on that site it could breach those containments… The horse is out of the barn at that point… (discussion continues at 32:00 in) On toppling over… probably half the concrete inside the containment that was originally there has been eaten away by the hot radioactive fuel — and there’s ongoing chemical attacks — so I really think the concrete under the containment is pretty darn punky [“resembling punk in being soft or rotted”] right now, and is getting punkier as time goes on.”

Kyodo News, Mar 1, 2017 (emphasis added): A former worker at the site of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster filed a lawsuit Tuesday with the Sapporo District Court seeking labor compensation from the state for his subsequent development of three types of cancer… The man was diagnosed with bladder, stomach and colon cancers between June 2012 and May 2013 after taking part in work to clear debris with heavy machinery at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex… and was exposed to 56.41 millisieverts of radiation in total, according to his written complaint. His application for labor compensation filed at a labor standards supervision office in Fukushima Prefecture was rejected in August 2013. He repeatedly filed requests for re-examination of his application but they were also rejected… But his legal team said, “It’s rare for a person to develop three types of cancer at almost the same time“…https://www.japantoday.com/category/national/view/ex-worker-at-fukushima-plant-seeks-compensation-for-cancer

Al Jazeera, Aug 29, 2016: Fukushima’s surfers riding on radioactive waves… An employee of the nuclear plant said that he would never swim here as the water is too contaminated. Five of his friends who work at the plant now have brain damage.

Phoenix New Times, Oct 27, 2016: On my last day in Japan, I met with disaster medicine expert Dr. Atsushi Kumagai in a small conference room in the Fukushima University Hospital, about 52 miles from the Fukushima-Daiichi power plant… Two days after the accident at Fukushima, he, along with two nurses, a radiation technician, and a radiation biologist boarded an army helicopter and flew to Fukushima University Hospital… they managed to set up a temporary and secluded hospital-within-a-hospital at FMU. No one there knew how to handle radiation exposure, which meant that Kumagai and his staff had to train the FMU employees and treat sick people at the same time. For days, the staff worked long hours, taking a few hours at night to sleep on the floor in an empty part of the building. “Every night, we had deep discussions about how to think about this all. We talked about our feelings and anxieties, about the meaning of life, and ‘can we survive?’ “We had such deep conversations, and people cried,” Kumagai says, placing his hands over his heart. “Before the accident, frankly speaking, nobody was concerned about nuclear power… It is a big problem that nobody cared… No one really understood the risk or how to measure or think about the risk,” he says.http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/the-millennials-dilemma-a-young-writers-search-for-our-nuclear-future-in-chernobyl-fukushima-and-phoenix-8770717/2

See also: “Shocking how many people died in Fukushima” — Cremated bodies of Fukushima radiation workers found near plant — “Such a high rate of cancer” being detected in Fukushima children (VIDEOS)

Arnie Gundersen, former nuclear engineer (emphasis added), Feb 2, 2017: “When I went to school, the saying was ‘dilution is the solution to pollution,’ and that’s what the Japanese believe. If they dump [radioactive water from Fukushima Daiichi] on their side and it floats over to the West Coast of the U.S. — the Pacific’s a big place — it’ll dilute out. I don’t think that’s appropriate… people are going to die. Regardless of how low the radiation is, it does cause cellular damage and cancer. So if you spread it out in a big body of water, the concentration goes down, but on the other hand, you’ve got a couple billion people exposed to it because they’re on the edge of that big body of water. So the concentration is down but the population is up and you’re still going to get cancer; it’s inevitable.”

Dr. Helen Caldicott, Feb 13, 2017: As the water flows beneath the damaged reactors, it immerses the three molten cores and becomes extremely radioactive as it continues its journey into the adjacent Pacific Ocean. Every day since the accident began, 300 to 400 tons of water has poured into the Pacific where numerous isotopes including cesium 137, 134, strontium 90, tritium, plutonium, americium and up to 100 more, enter the ocean and bio-concentrate by orders of magnitude at each step of the food chain… tuna, salmon and other species found on the American west coast now contain some of these radioactive elements… [Fukushima Daiichi] will continue to pour water into the Pacific for the rest of time…

Fox News, Feb 8, 2017: Adam Housley, who reported from the area in 2011 following the catastrophic triple-meltdown, said… small levels of radiation are still being detected off the coasts of California and Oregon and scientists fear it could get worse. “The worry is with 300 tons of radioactive water going into the Pacific every day, what is that doing to the Pacific Ocean?” said Housley…

Fox News video transcript excerpts, Feb 8, 2017: Nearly 300 tons of radioactive water is dumped into the Pacific Ocean each and every day… There is still radiation being detected off the west coast of California and Oregon… The worry is with 300 tons of radioactive water going in every day to the Pacific — what is that doing to the Pacific Ocean?… We really don’t know what this radioactive water is doing to the Pacific I think a lot of people are very concerned about that…. As we know that water moves toward the west coast of the US.”

The Chinese Embassy in Japan on Sunday issued an alert to its nationals who have plans to travel in Japan, reminding them of the high-level radiation inside a damaged reactor of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.

Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), the facility’s operator, announced last week that the radiation levels detected inside the plant’s No. 2 reactor had reached 650 Sieverts per hour, even higher than the previous record of 530 Sieverts per hour in January.

Even with a 30 percent margin of error, the reading is described by many experts as “unimaginable.” It is much higher than the 73 Sieverts an hour, which was detected in 2012, one year after the nuclear plant’s collapse. Under such exposure, a person would only be able to survive a few minutes at most.

The TEPCO on Thursday sent a remotely controlled robot into the reactor, equipped with a camera that is designed to withstand up to 1,000 Sieverts of cumulative exposure. The robot was pulled out after it broke down only two hours into the probe.

The company is planning to send better robots to conduct more detailed probes. However, it insists that radiation has not leaked outside the reactor.

Last week, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said China has issued safety alerts to its nationals over the high-level radiation. He added that China hopes that the Japanese government could clarify how they are going to thoroughly eliminate the impact caused by the nuclear accident.

Six years have now passed after three reactors at Fukushima’s nuclear power plant were damaged by a devastating 9.0-magnitude earthquake and a subsequent tsunami on March 11, 2011. After the accident, the local government ordered residents living within 30-kilometer radius around the Fukushima nuclear plant to evacuate.